Rock and Roll Flashpoints

Actually probably a better description would be rock and roll turning points , but thought I'd do an homage to a 20 year old Stones live album with a great studio cut, “ High Wire”. Trying to capture those defining moments in the life span of a rock and roll band---moments when the rocket ship took off due to some perhaps random stroke of luck or genius, beyond the tracks laid on vinyl or CD.

Or the jump the shark moments that lead to “I told them 1000 times, it’s puppet show second’.
Have a couple that come to mind, but the one that got me thinking about starting this thread was REO Speedwagon. A rock band from the 70s that cut its chops in the bars and dives around Champaign-Urbana. Builds a nice regional following and gains some national notice with ‘Ridin’ the Storm Out’ and continues to build on its reputation as one of the decade’s hard rock soldiers.

Which leads to the REO flashpoint, for me, -- “Time For Me to Fly”.

Nice tune, don’t get me wrong. Enjoy it every time I hear it. But with that song, Kevin Cronin discovered a formula that was a) very easily repeatable for him b) opened the cash register drawers. And the course of history for REO changed from that moment forward.

“Time for Me to Fly” begat “Keep on Lovin You” and “Take It on The Run”, which begat “I Can’t Fight This Feeling” . And the one time AOR staple band had transformed to a pop 40, easy listening station band. Soon, to be followed by the ostracization or disenchantment (depending on your point of view) of one of the bands leaders, guitarist Gary Richrath.

Sure, you can still catch REO on the oldies summer circuit these days with their pals Styx and others. And there’s a lot of listenable and enjoyable music in there. But it’s a long way from the reefer smoke filled auditoriums on the 1970s.

I'll play. Slade was one of the biggest bands in England in the early 1970s during the glam era. Sold tons of records. Barely got noticed in America, and faded in the late 1970s in England. Quiet Riot covers Cum on Feel the Noise in the early 1980s just as Slade reforms to play Monsters of Rock. Interest sparks and Slade's next album goes top 40 in the u.s. on the strength of the song, runaway.

Didn't the Manfried Mann's Earth Band cover of "Blinded by the Light" play a big role in turning Bruce Springsteen into a superstar?

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That version came out more than a year after Born to Run and Bruce being on the cover of Time and Newsweek.

One of my favorite writings on this topic is in the first Dave Marsh bio of Bruce. In writing about Incident on 57th Street, Marsh says "all the funny street names suddenly come to life, leaping from the earlier songs to swagger down boulevards and creep down narrow alleys . . . . If he has already written greater music, explored the possibilities of his ideas more completely, made better recordings, none of it can ever sound this fresh. Neither he, nor we, will ever again be quite so astonished by the dimensions of his talent."

Grateful Dead's 1987 album In The Dark was a surprise hit and gave them their first and only Top 10 song in Touch Of Grey. Spawned a whole new generation of Deadhead wannabees that seriously overwhelmed and undermined the whole Dead show scene. The Dead were never quite the same.